


Deal With It

by Ceebee



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceebee/pseuds/Ceebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "Matt is experiencing sensory overload, bad enough he's in tears, and Foggy is there to help. Mostly by staying close enough to act as an anchor, something for Matt to focus his senses on. Was it actually bad enough that Matt called Foggy for help? Was Matt trying to go about his day as normal, and his control finally shattered? Did Foggy just happen to drop by at the best/worst moment? All up to you!"</p><p>Matt calls Foggy against his better judgement. It turns out to be the right decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=2114064#cmt2114064

Usually, Matt’s fine. It does all get a bit much sometimes, but he learnt to deal with it way back when. It’s all about pulling back at the right moment, just before it feels like the world’s going to swallow him whole. He’ll just stop concentrating for a few minutes - stop listening for the sound of sirens as well as being curious about the kid on the phone a couple of streets over. Stop guessing the material of the woman’s t-shirt as she walks past by feeling the motes that drift away from her. Stop tasting the air, and simply _breathe_ instead. 

But Matt doesn’t like shutting down. It feels too much like giving up, even if there’s nothing in particular that he’s trying to hold onto.

He knows, vaguely, that it’s a problem. ‘Unhealthy Mindsets’ is the title of a chapter that he remembers reading at some point, and ‘Give Yourself a Break’ was probably a subheading that his fingers had blithely skipped over. 

It’s at times like this that he wishes he hadn’t. Or, at least, it's at times like this that he wishes he’d opted for a cab rather than the subway. 

The first mistake he makes is to sit down - somehow the crush of bodies is _worse_ when he’s just that much further removed from it. It means his other senses are working harder, trying to make up for the fact that he isn’t being smothered on every side by ensuring he can hear, taste, smell everything. Like that guy by the doors, one hand gripping the overhead railing. He’s wearing corduroy trousers and each tiny ridge is like a chasm overflowing with information that Matt can’t help processing. This is the third train he’s taken today, and he’s wiped his hands on his trousers since buying a corn dog from that stand near the bakery with the outdoor display. There’s loose change in his pocket - a couple of quarters - and spearmint gum stuck to the bottom of his faux-leather brogues.

Matt’s knuckles whiten as he twists his hands tightly around his cane. The woman next to him turns the page of her broadsheet paper so that it brushes against the back of his wrist, and he _flinches_. Someone - a kid, adolescent, got on at the last stop - bites into a baguette that has more mayo in it than tuna, and everyone thrums with the movement of the train. Matt imagines he can feel his bones rattling beneath his skin, and suddenly he wants to hunch over. _Needs_ to make himself smaller, just for a minute, so that everything can shrink with him and become a tiny point of sensation that he can pin beneath his thumb and hold there. 

He gets off at the next stop and walks the rest of the way back to his apartment, even though his cane keeps almost slipping from his grasp and his breathing is becoming embarrassingly erratic, to the point where anyone might notice...

He should call Foggy. Foggy would want him to call - that’s what he always says, isn’t it?

_Just pick up the phone next time, alright, buddy?_

It’s been like that since college. Practically the first thing Foggy had done was program his number into Matt’s battered cell, marking the start of a thousand breakdowns in communication, all involving Matt’s apparent inability to ring his best friend when things start going to shit.

Which is miserably often.

But, Matt makes it to his front door without even taking his phone out of his pocket. He even makes it over the threshold, his cane skidding across the hardwood in the few seconds before he unclenches his hand and lets it fall. 

He can feel grime in every one of his pores. It itches, so he rakes his nails over his skin a few times to try and scratch out the parts that are starting to drown him. His clothes are unbearably heavy, the stitches interwoven with traces of everyone who’s bumped into him since he got up this morning, and his _ears_...they won’t stop ringing. 

He doesn't make it any further; he gropes for his phone, and it seems like Foggy picks up before the number's even finished dialling. 

Matt opens his mouth. For a second, he thinks he can taste his own heartbeat and almost gags, chest seizing.

Foggy asks something but it's mostly lost in the buzz of the phone battery, and the tinny sound of whatever music's coming from the earphones that he must have just pulled out.

Matt sucks in a breath and concentrates, shutting his eyes just to pretend that it helps.

"Matt? Hey, can you hear me? Is everything alright?"

Matt shakes his head, not because everything's _not_ alright, but just to clear it so that he can answer properly and -

"Use your words, buddy."

"I -" Matt starts, then stops. Then starts again: "I...Foggy."

He's made his way into the kitchen and now he braces himself against one of the counters. His breathing is choppy and his chin is practically touching his chest because keeping his head up only makes the world spin a little bit faster.

"I'm not, I'm not -"

"Hang on," Foggy says. "I'll be at yours in five."

Matt drops the phone with a clatter the moment Foggy hangs up but can still feel the echoes of a vibration, irritating his palm.

He can't believe it's gotten this bad. He can't believe it and his head pounds and his eyes ache from being the only thing providing any kind of relief - the only thing not _sensing_.

He feels his face begin to crumple in the way it does whenever he's about to cry, and he fights it for a moment, struggling to keep his mouth from trembling. Then, he slams his hand down on the counter so hard that everything in the cutlery drawer jangles, and that is apparently the final straw.


	2. Chapter 2

Matt had gotten migraines a couple times back in college. Foggy would come back to their room and find him lying in his bed with the duvet twisted up in a sweaty heap around his ankles. His eyes would be tight shut and his hands clamped down over his ears.

"Migraine," he'd grit out, when Foggy voiced his concern. "Just need to sleep it off."

He'd then proceed to toss and turn, doing the exact opposite of what Foggy (and most other humans) thought of as 'sleeping'. 

Foggy had wondered a few times why no one else who had migraines ever complained of itchy skin or had difficulty breathing - not that Matt ever _actually_ complained. At least, not verbally, but Foggy could see the pale scratch marks on his skin and the way he'd gape, as if hoping the air would just flood in and out of its own accord. As it ought to have done, Foggy supposed, if Matt wasn't suffering from more than a migraine.

Now, of course, he knows better. Matt isn't just a normal guy, after all, and Foggy _has_ always been aware of that. But, there's a difference between assuming your friend is a little quirky, and assuming that 'migraine' is actually code talk for 'my unnaturally heightened senses are sending my usually chill equilibrium totally out of whack'.

Foggy still calls them migraines, as a shorthand. 

He's pretty sure that's what this call is about.

"I'll be at yours in five," he says, already swinging his bag over his shoulder. Karen looks worried so he gives her an assuring sort of eyeroll - the one that says, _Matt's gone and got himself into trouble again_. He almost hates how easily she gets it.

He stops off at his place to grab a couple things before heading out again, and overall it takes a good twenty minutes for him to get to Matt's apartment. If it were anyone else he might not have worried but he has a niggling suspicion that Matt has the kind of attention span that allows him to literally count the seconds. As he lets himself in he says, "Sorry I took longer than I said," just in case.

Then, he kicks a spoon across the room. It crashes into the foot of the sofa and Matt, who is sitting there, flinches so violently that he dislodges one of his cushions, sending it with a soft _thump_ to the floor.

"Shit, sorry," Foggy says, keeping his voice low. The sound still makes something in Matt's face tick uncomfortably and Foggy resolves to keep his mouth shut for the time being. 

On the floor, he notices, is a lot of cutlery. Matt had apparently pulled out the entire drawer, which is now face down on the opposite side of the room, with its contents scattered liberally about.

 _Right_ , Foggy thinks, remembering the knotted bedsheets. He wonders how many times Matt had struggled with himself to not trash their room, and at the same time instinctively knows the answer: _a lot of times_.

He crosses the room, all but on tiptoes, and gingerly sits down beside him. He doesn't touch but he's close enough so that Matt can, if he wants to.

He's trying to decide whether the sound of him opening his bag will be more or less painful for Matt if he warns him about it first, when Matt says, "What is it?"

And, oh yeah - Matt can tell when Foggy wants to say something. That's a thing that happens. Foggy still forgets, sometimes.

"It's okay if I talk?" he asks, and then realises it's a stupid question, so presses on quickly, "I brought you something from my place. It's in my bag though, and, um...velcro..."

Matt gives a strained smile and says, grimly, "Go for it."

Foggy bites his lip, makes a mental note to buy what Karen calls 'an _adult_ bag' with like, buckles, or whatever, and rips up the flap of his satchel.

He's expecting Matt to grin and bear it - it's sort of what Matt _does_ \- and so it's a shock when, instead of remaining stoic, Matt gasps and hunches over. His hands flutter around his ears like he wants to cover them but is scared that maybe that'll be what freaks Foggy out - not that Matt's obviously in terrible shape right now, but that he's trying to help himself feel better. Because Matt might spend half his life looking out for a load of strangers but God forbid that he exercises even the tiniest bit of self preservation.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Foggy's saying as he scrabbles in his bag with one hand, while the other hovers just above Matt's shoulder, too scared to touch. "What I've got might make it better, hang on...ah, here!"

He thrusts a pair of headphones into Matt's hands.

"What?" Matt sounds choked, and _shit_ , when did he start crying? Foggy's heart leaps into his throat and he can't help it - he reaches over and gently catches Matt's fingers in his to guide them over the headphones. 

"They're noise cancelling," he explains. "I know they probably won't work on you that well because of super senses and everything, but I bought them anyway...I thought they might come in handy some time."

Matt takes a few shallow breaths and then nods. "You didn't have to," he manages, after a couple of tries.

"Hey, it's cool. You wanna give them a go?"

Matt nods again, lifting them to his head and then pulling them down over his ears. They're dark red and soft - not soft enough so that they'll be perfectly comfortable, not for Matt, but better than nothing. 

It takes a few moments but, gradually, he starts to relax. The tenseness in his shoulders dissipates in visible bursts.

"Can you still hear me?" Foggy asks, tentative, but also curious. When _he'd_ tried them on the silence had been so absolute that he'd wrenched them off after a couple of seconds, feeling distinctly unnerved. he'd been positive that, had there been an explosion, he wouldn't have been able to hear it.

"Yeah," Matt whispers, after a moment. "But I can't hear the knives and forks, anymore."

 _Knives and forks?_ Foggy blinks. "You could still hear from when you dropped them, yeah bud?"

Matt hums and his eyes fall shut. "I shouldn't have done that."

"It might've bared some thinking about," Foggy concedes. Matt's lips twitch. It's a relief to see, but Foggy has a feeling that he's witnessing the start of a coverup. Matt trying to make Foggy think that everything's okay. Matt being Matt.

"This is better," he says, right on cue. Foggy smiles and is glad that Matt can't see it, because it even _feels_ sad.

"Good," he says. 

Matt's hand twitches in his lap. Then, with what appears to be Herculean effort, he lets it drop into the space between them. Palm up.

"Do you mind?" he asks, and Foggy knows he's deliberately angled his face so it won't even seem like he's looking at him. "It helps, having one thing to hold onto...to concentrate on, I mean..."

Foggy stares at Matt's hand. It looks deceptively soft, as if he doesn't spend his nights wielding those bloody wooden sticks, or else knives, or crowbars, or whatever he can get hold of when he's out risking his life. Foggy doesn't understand it, not really, not any of it.

But some things will always be easy.

"Sure," he says. "Anything you need."

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things -
> 
> 1) I know nothing about the subway. I think I read on the kink meme that it doesn't actually go to Hell's Kitchen? So perhaps Matt was travelling from somewhere further out in NY and got off just outside of HK. Otherwise I'm sorry, I know details like that can be irritating for people :/
> 
> 2) why doesn't Matt go to work that day??? Who actually knows. Maybe he was out visiting a client?? Or maybe I should def just plan better oops.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this anyway <3


End file.
